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Topic: Is it best to learn Sahidic? (Read 2468 times)

Blessings and all good. I am new to this forum as well as being very new to learning to read the Coptic language. It is my intention to learn Coptic in order to further my religious studies and my question is whether Sahidic would be the most useful dialect for me to learn?At first I didn't realise that there were two different Coptic dialects and as I very much want to learn to read transcripts of early New Testament manuscripts I want to be certain that I begin my lessons with the correct dialect for doing this.

Sahidic is the richest of all dialects in terms of number of manuscripts and amount of vocabulary

Bohairic was the dialect adopted by the Church by the 11th century.Almost all manuscripts written in Boahiric are from the 9th century and onward

In my opinion Bohairic is a bit easier to learn.

If you are going to study the Bible, its available in both dialects.If you are going to study Coptic church payers Bohairic is better.If you are going to study old teachings of Coptic fathers/saints Sahidic is better.If you are going to study none christian text, Sahidic is better.